Vibration Isolation Design for the Micro-X Rocket Payload

Micro-X is a NASA-funded, sounding rocket-borne X-ray imaging spectrometer that will allow high precision measurements of velocity structure, ionization state and elemental composition of extended astrophysical systems. One of the biggest challenges in payload design is to maintain the temperature of the detectors during launch. There are several vibration damping stages to prevent energy transmission from the rocket skin to the detector stage, which causes heating during launch. Each stage should be more rigid than the outer stages to achieve vibrational isolation. We describe a major design effort to tune the resonance frequencies of these vibration isolation stages to reduce heating problems prior to the projected launch in the summer of 2014.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, LTD15 Conference Proceeding

Phylogenetic distance does not predict competition in green algal communities

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116355/1/ecs214005021.pd

First principles predictions of thermophysical properties of refrigerant mixtures

We present pair potentials for fluorinated methanes and their dimers with CO2 based on ab initio potential energy surfaces. These potentials reproduce the experimental second virial coefficients of the pure fluorinated methanes and their mixtures with CO2 without adjustment. Ab initio calculations on trimers are used to model the effects of nonadditive dispersion and induction. Simulations using these potentials reproduce the experimental phase-coexistence properties of CH3F within 10% over a wide range of temperatures. The phase coexistence curve of the mixture of CH2F2 and CO2 is reproduced with an error in the mole fractions of both phases of less than 0.1. The potentials described here are based entirely on ab initio calculations, with no empirical fits to improve the agreement with experiment

What does touch tell us about emotions in touchscreen-based gameplay?

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 ACM. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution.Nowadays, more and more people play games on touch-screen mobile phones. This phenomenon raises a very interesting question: does touch behaviour reflect the player’s emotional state? If possible, this would not only be a valuable evaluation indicator for game designers, but also for real-time personalization of the game experience. Psychology studies on acted touch behaviour show the existence of discriminative affective profiles. In this paper, finger-stroke features during gameplay on an iPod were extracted and their discriminative power analysed. Based on touch-behaviour, machine learning algorithms were used to build systems for automatically discriminating between four emotional states (Excited, Relaxed, Frustrated, Bored), two levels of arousal and two levels of valence. The results were very interesting reaching between 69% and 77% of correct discrimination between the four emotional states. Higher results (~89%) were obtained for discriminating between two levels of arousal and two levels of valence

Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations of Pion Scattering from Li

We show that the neutron and proton transition densities predicted by recent quantum Monte Carlo calculations for A=6,7 nuclei are consistent with pion scattering from 6Li and 7Li at energies near the Delta resonance. This has provided a microscopic understanding of the enhancement factors for quadrople excitations, which were needed to describe pion inelastic scattering within the nuclear shell model of Cohen and Kurath.Comment: 10 pages, REVTeX, 3 postscript figures; added calculation of elastic and inelastic pion scattering from 6Li at multiple energie

Enhancing the experience of carers in the chemotherapy outpatient setting: an exploratory randomised controlled trial to test impact, acceptability and feasibility of a complex intervention co-designed by carers and staff

PurposeSupporting someone through chemotherapy can be emotionally and physically demanding. However, research has yet to establish the type of support carers require or the best way to provide this. This study tested the feasibility and acceptability of a complex intervention for carers that was co-designed by staff and carers of patients starting chemotherapy.MethodsForty-seven carers were recruited, randomised between the intervention (n?=?24) and control (n?=?23) groups. A questionnaire was completed pre- and post-intervention measuring knowledge of chemotherapy and its side effects, experience of care, satisfaction with outpatient services, coping and emotional wellbeing. The intervention process was evaluated by carers and healthcare professionals (HCPs) in focus groups.ResultsRecruitment to the study was unproblematic and attrition from it was low, suggesting the intervention and study processes were acceptable to patients and carers. Carers in receipt of the ‘Take Care’ intervention reported statistically significantly better understanding of symptoms and side effects and their information needs being more frequently met than carers in the control. Confidence in coping improved between baseline and follow-up for the intervention group and declined for the control although differences were insufficient to achieve statistical significance. There was no significant difference between the two groups’ emotional wellbeing. HCP and carer focus groups confirmed the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention.ConclusionsThe ‘Take Care’ intervention proved acceptable to carers and HCPs and demonstrates considerable promise and utility in practice. Study findings support the conduct of a fully powered RCT to determine the intervention’s effectiveness and cost-effectiveness

No measure for culture? Value in the new economy

This paper explores articulations of the value of investment in culture and the arts through a critical discourse analysis of policy documents, reports and academic commentary since 1997. It argues that in this period, discourses around the value of culture have moved from a focus on the direct economic contributions of the culture industries to their indirect economic benefits. These indirect benefits are discussed here under three main headings: creativity and innovation, employability, and social inclusion. These are in turn analysed in terms of three forms of capital: human, social and cultural. The paper concludes with an analysis of this discursive shift through the lens of autonomist Marxist concerns with the labour of social reproduction. It is our argument that, in contemporary policy discourses on culture and the arts, the government in the UK is increasingly concerned with the use of culture to form the social in the image of capital. As such, we must turn our attention beyond the walls of the factory in order to understand the contemporary capitalist production of value and resistance to it. </jats:p

Brief communication: Meteorological and climatological conditions associated with the 9 January 2018 post-fire debris flows in Montecito and Carpinteria, California, USA

The Thomas Fire burned 114&thinsp;078&thinsp;ha in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, southern California, during December 2017–January 2018. On 9 January 2018, high-intensity rainfall occurred over the Thomas Fire burn area in the mountains above the communities of Montecito and Carpinteria, initiating multiple devastating debris flows. The highest rainfall intensities occurred with the passage of a narrow rainband along a cold front oriented north to south. Orographic enhancement associated with moist southerly flow immediately ahead of the cold front also played a role. We provide an explanation of the meteorological characteristics of the event and place it in historic context.</p

Between overt and covert research: concealment and disclosure in an ethnographic study of commercial hospitality

This article examines the ways in which problems of concealment emerged in an ethnographic study of a suburban bar and considers how disclosure of the research aims, the recruitment of informants, and elicitation of information was negotiated throughout the fieldwork. The case study demonstrates how the social context and the relationships with specific informants determined overtness or covertness in the research. It is argued that the existing literature on covert research and covert methods provides an inappropriate frame of reference with which to understand concealment in fieldwork. The article illustrates why concealment is sometimes necessary, and often unavoidable, and concludes that the criticisms leveled against covert methods should not stop the fieldworker from engaging in research that involves covertness